We Couldn’t Release the Uighurs, WHY Exactly?

The news today included the fact that President Obama’s administration finally released the last 3 ethnic Uighurs from Guantanamo. These last three political prisoners were sent to Slovakia. Of the 22 Uighurs originally incarcerated at Guantanamo, all have been released and sent to 6 different countries around the world, none of them their homeland.

The Uighur’s were taken into custody after the US invasion of Afghanistan…although many of them were arrested in Pakistan and turned over to the US for bounties. But early, as early as 2003, on the US military determined that they weren’t hostile to the USA and had not been affiliated with either al-Qaida or the Taliban And in fact a judge ordered them released in 2008. But yet we kept them confined in Guantanamo for another five years. So essentially the US government keep 22 men in prison for 10 or more years for no good reason? Well not quite…the great humanitarians that we are couldn’t find or provide homes for them. And I agree that we couldn’t possibly return them to China because?

They could not be sent to China because under U.S. law they had a reasonable fear of persecution and torture.